The Knowledge and Attitude Towards Advance Care Planning Among Chinese Patients with Advanced Cancer

When and how to discuss about palliative care and advance care planning with cancer patients: A mixed-methods study

OBJECTIVES

To identify the patients who are most likely to participate in discussions about palliative care (PC) and advance care planning (ACP), and to determine their preferred timing and approach of discussion.

METHODS

The study included women aged 18-75 years diagnosed with breast cancer. In the quantitative phase, sociodemographic and clinical characteristics, knowledge, decision-making, and stigmas were evaluated. The qualitative phase included questions about patients' understanding, timing, and method of discussing PC and ACP, which were analyzed by Bardin's content analysis.

RESULTS

In Phase 1, a total of 115 participants were included, with 53.04% completing both phases and 46.96% declining further participation. Those who completed both phases exhibited higher rates of marriage and educational attainment, while those who declined Phase 2 had a higher prevalence of advanced-stage cancer and palliative treatment. Completion of both phases was associated with a greater knowledge of reality and increased awareness of PC and ACP. Furthermore, the qualitative analysis revealed 5 convergent themes: timing, demystification, patient empowerment, misconception elimination, and open communication. These themes informed the development of a conceptual model that provides a framework for discussing PC and ACP with patients at different stages of cancer diagnosis and treatment, highlighting appropriate and inappropriate approaches and timing.

SIGNIFICANCE OF RESULTS

Early discussion is beneficial, but withholding information or infringing on autonomy should be avoided. The study reveals that married and highly educated individuals tend to be more receptive to these discussions. However, patients with late-stage cancer tend to decline participation. Patients value open communication, demystification of PC, and empowering discussions that eliminate misunderstandings. Efforts should be made to reach patients with limited familiarity, particularly those with late-stage cancer, to increase their receptiveness to enable well-informed decision-making.

Barriers to initiate a discussion about advance care planning among older Taiwanese residents of nursing homes and their families: A qualitative study

BACKGROUND

In Taiwan, the Patients' Right to Autonomy Act was enacted in 2019. However, advance care planning (ACP) implementation rates remain low in long-term care facilities.

AIM

This study explored the barriers to initiate a discussion about ACP among older Taiwanese residents of nursing homes and their families.

METHODS

A descriptive qualitative design was used. Face-to-face interviews were individually conducted with 38 participants (residents: 18; family members: 20), and data were analyzed through content analysis.

RESULTS

Five themes were identified: (1) having cultural or spiritual concerns (both groups), (2) prioritizing the bigger picture (family) (both groups), (3) waiting for the right time (both groups), (4) feeling unsure (residents), and (5) following the pace of the residents (family members).

CONCLUSION

The results indicate that discussing ACP with Chinese people and their families clashes with traditional Chinese culture. To implement ACP in long-term care facilities based in regions with ethnically Chinese populations, medical professionals must ensure that the residents and their family members understand advance directives and their role in ensuring a good death and must act as a bridge between residents and their family members to assist them in making consensual end-of-life-care decisions with residents.

Advance Directives in Portugal: A Qualitative Survey

(1) Background: Advance directives (ADs) in Portugal have been legalized since 2012. What has been observed over time, from the few studies carried out, is that despite the positive attitudes in the population, there is a low level of adherence to ADs. To try to understand the reasons for these data, the current study aimed to explore and describe the experiences of the Portuguese population regarding AD. (2) Methods: For this exploratory and descriptive qualitative study, the researchers conducted open (unstructured) interviews with a convenience sample aged over 18 years until data saturation was achieved. (3) Results: A total of fifteen interviews were conducted-eight with women and seven with men. The following four categories emerged from the content analysis of the interviews: (1) AD literacy, (2) AD relevance, (3) AD attitudes, and (4) conditionalities for compiling the ADs. (4) Conclusions: The study pointed out the good receptivity of the participants to the ADs; however, literacy on this subject was low, and identifying the conditionalities in the development of ADs could contribute to improvements in implementation in the population. The data from this study suggest the need to implement measures to increase the literacy of the Portuguese population on ADs and review the legal framework for improving the accessibility of the citizen population. There is also a need to continue researching and obtain more evidence about the ways in which the Portuguese population perceives ADs; thus, in this way, a society can better respond to its citizens' right to freely exercise their prospective autonomy at the end of their lives.

A Systematic Review of Non-Seriously Ill Community-Dwelling Asians' Views on Advance Care Planning

OBJECTIVES

To systematically synthesize the views of community-dwelling Asians on Advance care planning and to summarize the factors and reasons affecting their uptake of ACP.

DESIGN

Mixed-methods systematic review (PROSPERO: CRD42018091033).

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS

Asian adults (≥18 years old) living in the community globally.

METHODS

Medline (Ovid), Web of Science, CINAHL (EBSCO), Open Grey, and Google Scholar were searched from inception to June 30, 2022. Qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods studies reporting on the views of non-seriously ill community-dwelling Asian adults on ACP or the factors influencing their ACP uptake were included. Secondary research, studies not published in English, or studies not available as full text were excluded. Two independent teams of researchers extracted data, assessed methodologic quality, and performed the data analysis. Data analysis was conducted using the multistep convergent integrated approach based on Joanna Briggs Institute methodology for mixed-methods systematic review.

RESULTS

Fifty-eight studies were included. Non-seriously ill community-dwelling Asians were willing to engage in ACP (46.5%-84.4%) although their awareness (3.1%-42.9%) and uptake of ACP remained low (14.0%-53.4%). Background factors (sociodemographic factors, and health status, as well as experience and exposure to information) and underlying beliefs (attitude toward ACP, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control) were found to affect their uptake of ACP. A conceptual framework was developed to facilitate a proper approach to ACP for this population.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

A flexible approach toward ACP is needed for non-seriously ill community-dwelling Asians. There is also a need to raise end-of-life and ACP literacy, and to explore ways to narrow the gap in the expectations and implementation of ACP so that trust in its effective execution can be built.

Perceptions, Attitudes, and Knowledge toward Advance Directives: A Scoping Review

(1) Background: Advance directives are an expression of a person's autonomy regarding end-of-life care. Several studies have shown that the level of completion in countries where advance directives are legalised is low. To better understand this phenomenon, it is important to know the perceptions, attitudes, and knowledge that the population has about this instrument. The aim of this article was to explore a population's perceptions and/or attitudes and/or knowledge toward advance directives. (2) Methods: A search was conducted in March 2023 in the ISI Web of Knowledge, Scopus, and PubMed databases using the following keywords: "advance care directives", "advance care planning", "perceptions", "attitudes", and "knowledge". Two hundred and twenty-four (224) articles were identified, and thirteen (13) were included for analysis. (3) Results: The selected articles point to a low level of knowledge toward advance directives: they recognise a strong positive attitude of the population toward the implementation of advance directives but a low level of achievement. (4) Conclusions: Studies on perceptions/attitudes/knowledge toward advance directives are important to understand the real needs of the population regarding this issue and to implement more adequate and effective promotion and dissemination measures.

Advance care planning in oncology: a scoping review and some recommendations

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

Cancer patients' communication with their relatives and healthcare professionals (HCPs) is essential for advance care planning (ACP). The purpose of this scoping review was to synthesize recent research findings about factors enabling cancer patients', their relatives', and physicians' communication about ACP, and to propose recommendations for future ACP implementation in cancer care.

RECENT FINDINGS

This review confirmed the importance of aspects of the cancer care context (i.e., culture) as ACP uptake-predisposing and -enabling factors. It highlighted the difficulty of determining who should initiate ACP discussion, with which patients and at what time-points. It also highlighted a lack of consideration for socioemotional processes in the study of ACP uptake despite evidence that cancer patients', relatives' and physicians' discomforts that arise from communication about end-of-life and the wish to safeguard each other are main obstacles to ACP implementation.

SUMMARY

Based on these recent findings, we propose an ACP communication model, developed with the consideration of factors reported to influence ACP uptake and communication in healthcare, and integrating socioemotional processes. The testing of the model may yield suggestions for innovative interventions that can support communication about ACP and promote a better uptake in clinical practice.

The decisional balance, attitudes, and practice behaviors, its predicting factors, and related experiences of advance care planning in Taiwanese patients with advanced cancer

Background

Patients with advanced cancer are prone to experience burdensome physical, psychological, and financial consequences. Healthcare providers may not fully appreciate advanced cancer patients’ medical care autonomy, such as at that emboded by Advance Care Planning (ACP), and by doing so may compromise their quality of end-of-life (EOL). Hence, it is essential for healthcare providers to effectively assess and communicate with patients’ regarding their medical decisions before their patients are incapacitated by their disease progression. The purpose of this investigation was to describe the decisional balance, attitudes, and practice behaviors of ACP and its predictors of ACP-related experiences in Taiwanese patients with advanced cancer.

Methods

This cross-sectional, descriptive study employed a mixed-methodsquantitative and qualitative design with a sample of 166 patients that were purposely recruited from in-patient oncology units at a regional teaching hospital in southern Taiwan. Study data consisted of patient replies to a 34-item self-report tool, Decisional Balance, Attitudes, Practice Behaviors of ACP (DAP-ACP) and 4 semi-structured questions.

Result

Findings indicated that, in general, study participants exhibited favorable ACP-decisional balance and positive ACP-attitudes & practice behaviors. The results also indicated that gender, educational level, and cancer diagnosis were associated with significant differences on the “ACP-decisional balance” and “ACP-attitudes” scales. In addition, our findings documented that the participants’ gender and educational level were significant predictors of both ACP-decisional balance and ACP-attitudes. Furthermore the participants’ ACP-practice behaviors were predicted by ACP-decisional balance, but not with their ACP-attitudes. The qualitative analysis of the semi-structured questions identified six themes in responses to current medical decision making (e.g., compliance with physician instructions, family engagement in treatment decision-making); and eight themes pertaining to future ACP-related concerns were identified (e.g., family conflict, effectiveness of time-limited trials).

Conclusion

To promote patients’ engagement in ACP, the healthcare professional need to assess and advocate patients’ concerns or attitudes regarding ACP in a timely manner. In addition, factors or concerns that might influence patients’ responses to ACP derived from both the quantitative and qualitative findings of this current study need to be considered especially in initiating the dialogue regarding ACP with patients with advanced cancer.

Trial registration

No. CYCH 2,019,072, Date of registration 5 Dec 2019.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12904-022-01073-5.

The perspectives of family caregivers of people with Alzheimer´s disease regarding advance care planning in China: a qualitative research

OBJECTIVES

Advance care planning (ACP) enables people to define goals and preferences for future medical treatment and care. Despite universal recognition of the importance of ACP for people with Alzheimer´s disease (AD) internationally, there is little support for its implementation in China. The viewpoint of family caregivers is crucial in making clinical decisions about AD. Therefore, it's critical to understand the family caregivers' perspectives on ACP in order to promote its practice among people with AD in China.

METHODS

Seventeen family caregivers of people with AD were purposively selected in three communities in Guangzhou. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data and the data were analyzed using the thematic analysis.

RESULTS

Three main themes were extracted: ①Attitudes toward ACP including positive and negative attitudes; ②Social pressure influencing ACP decision; ③Behavioral willingness of the implementation of ACP.

CONCLUSIONS

Attitudes, social pressure, and behavioral willingness characterized the behavioral intentions of family caregivers of people with Alzheimer's disease. It is recommended to strengthen efforts to publicity of advance care planning and promote legislation in China.

Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Frailty in Older Adults over the Spectrum of Cancer: A Narrative Review

BACKGROUND

The interplay between different neuropsychiatric conditions, beyond dementia, in the presence of a diagnosis of cancer in older adults may mediate patients' fitness and cancer-related outcomes. Here, we aimed to investigate the presence of depression, sleep disturbances, anxiety, attitude, motivation, and support in older adults receiving a diagnosis of cancer and the dimension of frailty in order to understand the magnitude of the problem.

METHODS

This review provides an update of the state of the art based on references from searches of PubMed between 2000 and June 2021.

RESULTS

The evidence obtained underscored the tight association between frailty and unfavorable clinical outcomes in older adults with cancer. Given the intrinsic correlation of neuropsychiatric disorders with frailty in the realm of cancer survivorship, the evidence showed they might have a correlation with unfavorable clinical outcomes, late-life geriatric syndromes and higher degree of frailty.

CONCLUSIONS

The identification of common vulnerabilities among neuropsychiatric disorders, frailty, and cancer may hold promise to unmask similar shared pathways, potentially intercepting targeted new interventions over the spectrum of cancer with the delivery of better pathways of care for older adults with cancer.

Effects of Dispositional Resilience and Self-Efficacy on Practice in Advanced Care Planning of Terminally Ill Patients among Taiwanese Nurses: A Study Using Path Modeling

This study aimed to expand on previous research elucidating the effects of dispositional resilience and self-efficacy on practice in advanced care planning (ACP) of terminally ill patients among Taiwanese nurses using path modeling. This cross-sectional study was conducted using cluster sampling. Data were collected using demographics, nurses’ knowledge, attitude, and practice of ACP (KAP-ACP) inventory, Dispositional Resilience Scale, and General Self-Efficacy Scale. A total of 266 nurses from a tertiary medical center in northern Taiwan participated in this study in 2019. The results showed that gender and ward were significant K-ACP predictors among nurses. The ACP knowledge, ward, and experience of caring for terminally ill friends or relatives were significant A-ACP predictors, whereas ACP attitudes, dispositional resilience, self-efficacy, ward, and the frequency of caring for terminally ill patients were the key predictors of P-ACP. The path modeling showed that dispositional resilience; self-efficacy; medical, surgical, hematology and oncology wards; previous experience in caring for terminally ill friends or relatives; participating in the do-not-resuscitate signature; and the frequency of caring for terminally ill patients directly influenced ACP practices. We recommend that nurses enhance their dispositional resilience and self-efficacy, which may encourage them to appreciate the value of ACP practice of terminally ill patients and improve the quality of care.